1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a trabecular bone analyzer for analyzing the trabecular bone of a subject. A trabecular bone analyzer may acquire and analyze a radiation fluoroscopic image of a subject to perform trabecular bone analysis.
2. Description of the Related Art
A trabecula is often a long and thin structure forming a spongy substance inside bones. The health or disease status of a subject M can be checked by determining whether such trabeculae are sufficiently present in a bone. Further, the bone strength of the subject M can be determined by analyzing the trabecular bone of the subject M.
A conventional trabecular bone analyzing method will be described. As shown in FIG. 11, a conventional trabecular bone analyzer 50 includes a top board 52 on which a subject M is to be placed, a radiation source 53 provided above the top board 52, and a detector 54 provided below the top board 52. Trabecular bone analysis is performed on an image acquired by plain radiography performed using such a device as shown in FIG. 11. Plain radiography is a method for taking a fluoroscopic image by irradiating a subject with radiation only once.
A trabecular bone analyzing unit 62 performs trabecular bone analysis to quantify trabecular bone inside a bone. When the thus determined value is low, the amount of trabecular bone is small, which indicates that the bone strength of the subject M is low.
Alternatively, trabecular bone analysis may be performed based on the three-dimensional structure of trabecular bone of a subject acquired by a CT device. That is, this is a method in which a tomographic image is acquired by synchronously rotating a radiation source and a detector once around a subject, and trabecular bone analysis is performed on the tomographic image (see, for example, JP 2005-192657 A).